Hearing aids have a battery compartment for placement of a battery power source for operating the hearing aid. The battery compartment includes a battery door for providing access to the battery compartment to exchange an old battery with a new battery, when the power level of the old battery drops below a useful level.
Unfortunately, the battery door represents a potential reliability problem. Around the battery door are thin openings or gaps. These openings provide an area in which moisture, dirt, and body oils can enter a hearing aid, causing corrosion or intermittent hearing aid behavior. By minimizing these openings into a hearing aid, reliability can greatly be increased. However, a total seal is not desirable. For example, zinc air batteries, the most common hearing aid battery, require air for normal operation.
Another problem associated with a battery door having a poor battery door seal deals with a compromise in acoustic performance of the hearing aid. In particular, in the ear (ITE) hearing aids may allow sufficient sound pressure level (SPL) to leak from the interior of the hearing aid shell through the battery door slit to reach the microphone of the hearing aid. This leakage of acoustic energy to the microphone inlet can result in acoustic feedback, a highly undesirable outcome. Furthermore, these potential reliability problems also accompany battery doors for behind the ear (BTE) hearing aids.
What is needed is a seal around the battery compartment of a hearing aid to eliminate or substantially reduce leakage of acoustic energy that can cause acoustic feedback.
For these and other reasons there is a need for the present invention.